Returning to Innocence
by SimplyUnsolvedMystery
Summary: There wasn't always a fire there. Once there was nothing but bitter blackness, swallowing up a guilty man. It isn't until the man, Hatake Sakumo, realized his son still loved him that the fire bloomed as bright as the joy in his heart.


The bunnies just seem to inspire at the oddest times. This little idea and style was inspired by a lecture in one of my history classes. The bunnies love thinking up new stories during my history classes and when my professor mentioned Obon, well, that got the bunnies to hoppin'.

Obon is a festival in Japan, kind of like Mexico's Dia de los Muertos (and yes, that's Day of the Dead, but I wanted to feel special 'cause that's the only Spanish words I remember from high school). Anyway, during Obon, it is believed that the dead return to their loved ones for a single night. The people erect shrines in their homes, visit the local Shinto temples, and set out the paper lanterns.

Now the lanterns are the coolest part to me because the lights are supposed to essentially lead the dead and at the end, the loved ones place the lanterns in water to lead them back to the afterlife.

So the bunnies jumped on this idea and were like 'Rayne, put Sakumo in there', so of course I had to listen. Well, I'll leave you all to the reading portion of this. It was once again edited by the defeater of commas and the other things I add into my stories during my sleep deprived writing state, Cha's Aegis (formerly ChaCha1)

**Disclaimer: Last time I checked, my name was Kishimoto…..so nope, I don't own Naruto. **

* * *

Death is nothing like he expected while alive.

The gentle whispers of his Obaasan's voice telling him, in her dreamlike way, of the wonders of the afterlife turn to spiteful mocking in his ear as he realizes how naïve and wrong she was. There is no grand welcoming. Nor is there a field of green grass to rest his weary head.

Only pitch black night.

Only he and his regrets remain in this median of loneliness and despair, alone with the memories he barely recognizes and the ones he would kill to forget keeping him company.

It's unlike anything he ever expected, but it's everything he deserves.

('For being such a coward,' the whispers taunt him as he lies shaking in the black abyss, 'for abandoning a child that needed you.')

It's dark and cold.

Darker than anything he's ever experienced or ever wanted to. His mind, already so broken and torn, plays tricks on him in the darkness. Beautiful light flashes before his eyes in an array of reds and greens, only to disappear as soon as he reaches for them.

('Just as your son reached for you,' those horrible whispers wrack through his mind once more, grasping at straws just to torture his already scarred soul, 'as you lay dying in the den. He reached, he cried, he screamed, but you left him anyway.')

The cold is bone chilling and keeps his mind numb enough to wallow in his pain without coherent thought. It's cold, _oh so cold_, and reminds him of another man with white hair and tears of red running down his face. Of jumping into a river because the man dared him to. He remembers being happy, but it's a hollow memory as the cold seeps into his body.

('Jiraiya,' the whispers exclaim with mock sympathy for the man curled in on himself, 'surely you remember him? Your best friend, your rival, your brother; surely you remember jumping into the Nakano River? He jumped after you without a second thought. He would have followed you to the end of the world and beyond. I'm sure he's _so_ disappointed in what a screw-up you turned out to be in the end.')

The constant darkness swallows him up and the cold settles deep within his body, biting at lungs that no longer work and a heart that no longer beats. It hurts deep within his soul, despite the fact that his nerves no longer recognize physical pain. There's a swiftness to his agony in those clean-cut moments. It's beautiful; he realizes with a start, his pain is beautiful to him in those agonizing moments of confusion.

('Beautiful?' the whispers laugh languidly in his ear. "Beautiful was watching your tanto, so pure and white, blossom with blood, _so much blood_. Beautiful was watching that red source of life pool around your green shinobi uniform, complimenting yet offending all at the same time.')

It's quiet and endless. He hears nothing, but his owns sobs.

('Such a liar you are, _Sakumotsu_,' the whispers giggle into the darkness. 'Have you forgotten about us? Surely you're not trying to forget about us too? Haven't you abandoned enough things for one lifetime?')

Never moving and seemingly frozen in time.

('Just like Kakashi's face,' the whispers turn menacing, 'after finding your body in the den. Remember the way his eyes widened in disbelief, remember the way his body froze in shock, remember the tears that seemed to never stop?')

It's his punishment and he knows it.

('For being such a coward,' the whispers taunt him as he lies shaking in the black abyss, 'for abandoning a child that needed you.')

Until one day the distraught, _half-crazed_, man sees a beam of light shatter through the darkness, illuminating his body in hues of white and red. His mind can't comprehend it. It's unlike anything he's seen before, but it's everything he knows he wants.

('It's beautiful, isn't it, _Sakumotsu_?')

('Like your tanto, dripping with blood.')

At once, he's taken from the dark place and dropped into a much older Konoha. The darkness no longer coats his body, but beautiful orbs of blue and green illuminate a path for him. So beautiful the little lights are, like the fairies from Kakashi's storybook.

('Kakashi,' the whispers ridicule in a fading voice, 'you left him. He was just a baby and you left him. The villagers were right, you are scum.')

He follows them and tries to ignore the strange feeling he gets every time someone walks _through_ him. It terrifies him because he's so confused and so delighted at the same time. He's back in Konoha! His body is cold still, _oh so cold_, but the warmth around him is enough to fight off the encasing chill.

It's enough to make him feel alive.

He follows the fairy lights down winding roads and over rooftops. Only following, never leading, because they're taking him somewhere he's never been, but needs to be. The rooftops (a ninja's highway his Tousan once said) show him everything.

More ghostly figures like him show up on the rooftops following their own fairy lights. He watches as they wake up from their own confusion. Some are happy, some are sad, but they're altogether dead and altogether confused as to where they are. He reaches for the woman beside him, but falls short as the fairies, the yousei, begin to dance in cadence to a song he can't hear. Then like a lightning storm, so bright, beautiful, and deadly, the fairy lights one-by-one return to their lanterns.

It's the sudden shock of watching the night illuminate in light that Sakumo (_'Sakumotsu,'_ his Kaasan used to lovingly say, despite his insisting that she call him 'Sakumo') thinks he has died again. He laughs because death is nothing like they say it will be. No blinding light, no sudden warmth; only darkness and cold, _oh so cold_. It's the shock that awakens his numbed mind to what is really going on.

'Obon, the festival of the dead,' his mind whispers lovingly, replacing the hard tone of Sakumo's tormentor.

A night where spirits, like him, he suddenly realizes, return to the worldly realm in order to visit their relatives. His relatives would have done well to forget he ever existed. He wonders why he was brought back. He doesn't deserve to see his son.

(He remembers the cruel voice whispering in his ear, 'for being such a coward, for abandoning a child that needed you.')

Standing on the roof of a new apartment building, Sakumo is left alone. He's used to it by now, so it doesn't bother him anymore. All the other spirits disappear into rooms and houses. Sakumo is once again left alone to his thoughts. He begs, pleads, with whatever deity that brought him up from his darkness to put him back. He can't see his son.

('Yes,' he imagines that gentle voice to whisper, praying for anything other than the cruel jibe of his tormentor.)

Nothing answers him and he never expected anything to in the first place. He's alone on that roof in the darkness with the wind brushing through him. Perhaps he was wrong, the darkness wasn't his Hell. This (watching the living and being able to do nothing about it) is his _real_ punishment.

A single fairy light appears by his side. The round thing is pure white with streaks of blue and red (like his tanto, dripping with blood) crackling like electricity around it. Once, twice, three times the little light flutters through Sakumo's chest, right where his heart would be if he were still alive, trying to get the man to move, trying to lead the way to something extraordinary.

('Something you don't deserve,' he can imagine the cruel voice snarling in his ear.)

He resists, but a lone figure on the street catches, practically steals, his attention. It's a child, barely old enough to be alone, but already hunched over with the burdens of the world, walking briskly through the still summer night air.

('Summer,' that gentle voice muses, 'the season of fireflies and kisses, the season of youth.')

The boy, small, yet sparking with power, glides down the deserted street before stopping in front of the building Sakumo is chained to. It's only when the boy looks up that Sakumo realizes who it is. His son stands stories below him and his heart aches.

(Startling him because how can something that no longer beats ache?)

His fairy light passes through him one more time before Sakumo finds himself in a dimly lit hallway. Noises assault his ears, so different from the silence of death, and light attacks his eyes. He doesn't care, though, because Kakashi (_his son, his only child_, _his baby_) stalks down the hall with a scowl in his eyes, eye, Sakumo corrects himself as he sees the tilted Hitai-ate, and jams the key into the lock of a door with a broken number.

(Broken, just like Sakumo's mind after so many days in the darkness)

Suddenly, Sakumo can't stop his feet as they closely follow Kakashi (_his son, his only child, his baby_) into the tiny two room apartment, a kitchen and dining area to his right and a bedroom to his left. There's not even a full bathroom, just a sink in the far corner of the kitchen. No pictures line the walls and no little treasures line the shelves.

It's bare, dark like death, quiet and everything a child's room should not be.

Sakumo can't shake this feeling of hopelessness and of horror because he knows something is wrong and yet he can do anything to fix it. He wants, longs, to hold Kakashi (_his son, his only child, his baby_) in his arms, but the ghostly appendages simply brush through Kakashi every time he tries. The boy doesn't notice his attempts and simply goes on with his daily routine.

Sakumo finds a seat on the floor and stays there because he knows this is part of his punishment for leaving his son.

(To watch the living and be able to do nothing about it.)

Kakashi, young, powerful, full of regrets, feels his skin prickle and can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He knows something is watching him. He can feel, almost taste, the sadness rolling off of whatever has decided to watch him this night. It unnerves him that something has gotten past his traps and defenses. Slowly, the ninja chops up a lone purple eggplant, feigning innocence because Hatake Kakashi can't remember the last time he was innocent, before throwing the knife in the direction of the strange stare.

It touches nothing but wood.

(Sakumo's secretly pleased that his son's aim was good enough to find the place his heart would have been, despite the fact he couldn't see him.)

Shaking his head and silently laughing at his silliness, Kakashi tosses his eggplant pieces into a bowl of lukewarm miso soup before he walks over to the bedroom and strips out of his mission clothes. Sakumo feels a tad guilty about watching his son undress, but seeing the skinny, too skinny, boy pull on a small, too loose, he should have been wearing an extra small, shirt stirs the sadness back into his no longer beating heart.

Of course, it's the sight of Kakashi removing the Hitai-ate that sends Sakumo's non-moving chest into convulsions. The scar, so sinister and painful looking, catches his attention instantly. He refuses to think about how Kakashi (_his son, his only child, his baby_) received such a scar.

Unable to stop himself, Sakumo reaches forward and touches the end of the scar. His fingers stray up a few inches to caress a cheek just beginning to lose its final bit of baby fat. The boy, no, Sakumo suddenly realizes he is looking at a teenager, not a boy, flinches as goose bumps race down his slender neck.

Both eyes open, startling red and black swirl in one eye and dark charcoal in the other, to see the faint, almost see-through, outline of spiritual chakra standing, he refuses to say hovering, in front of him.

He doesn't know what, or who, it is, but refuses to let it scare him. With one steady hand, he reaches in front and watches as his hand disrupts the chakra. Spreading it (like ashes in the wind) around the room. Attentively he watches (because he knows he can't look away) as the chakra molds back together (like some deranged phoenix) into the same shape it was before.

Sakumo is shocked at the unusual eye that Kakashi wields. The Sharingan ('A gift from demons,' Sakumo's mind whispers.) possesses the ability to see chakra flow (apparently that of humans _and_ ghosts) in addition to copying jutsu. The spiritual chakra that allows Sakumo to return to the mortal realm was strong enough to grab the attention of the Sharingan.

More chill bumps race down Kakashi's arms as he moves away from the thing in front of him. His back hits the tiny kitchen table and Sakumo knows he is terrified of whatever is before him.

Kakashi's scared ('But Hatake Kakashi is never scared,' mocks Obito.) of whatever has taken residence inside his apartment.

(Never his home, because his heart wasn't there in that apartment, Kaasan always said your home was where your heart dwelled. His heart dwelled six feet under with a brown haired girl with purple triangles on her cheeks.)

Kakashi can't move (he's never felt like this before, not since he was four and thought the man under the stairs was going to get him) and doesn't know what to do. Before him is no genjutsu, nor ninjutsu, just something he can't explain away. That confuses him even more.

Sakumo watches in morbid fascination as Kakashi steels himself and brushes past him. The man catches just a brief glimpse of his son's emotions as he passes through him. He can't stand the ache in Kakashi's (_his son, his only child, his baby_) heart. He follows Kakashi into the bedroom where the boy (teenager, Sakumo chides himself softly) has taken refuge in.

Kakashi settles on the bed, covered in a childish shuriken patterned quilt, and watches the figure with his, no, Obito's, never forget, Obito's, Sharingan. When the thing makes no move to harm him or even come any closer to him, Kakashi settles down.

In a dry, unused voice, Kakashi finally speaks. "What are you?"

He receives no answer. Sakumo isn't allowed to talk to the living.

The prickles on the back of his neck are still there, but he isn't worried anymore. There's a certain relief, warmth, in the thing's gaze now. It's familiar, so familiar it hurts, and doesn't seem to wish any ill will on him. Despite the fact that he has no idea what's watching him (it makes him feel loved, something he hasn't felt since his sensei died) he allows it to stay. He pushes it to the back of his mind as he reaches behind his pillow and pulls out an orange book.

Sakumo is at ease when Kakashi bunches his pillow underneath his chin and props the offensive orange book up to read. His legs, just as thin as his arms, kick up childishly behind him and with the shuriken patterned quilt (so childish, yet the only piece of his childhood he clings to) he looks the perfect image of innocence. Too long, silver bangs fall into his eyes (mismatched, it fits him so well) as a pink blush erupts over his bare cheeks, his mask having found a home in the corner of his room, dinner forgotten on the kitchen table.

Curiously, Sakumo walks over and peers into the book his son is reading. It's almost like he never died and that he's helping Kakashi with some innate homework problem. Of course, after catching a few naughty words and scenes, Sakumo wishes he could blush because Kakashi's homework never involved _that_.

Kakashi feels the change, the mortification, in the thing and finds it amusing. "You looked at my book, didn't you?"

Once more, no answer. Kakashi doesn't need an answer, though, because he already knows. He'll never admit that's how he reacted the first time he read it too. Such a book wasn't for innocent eyes, but Hatake Kakashi hasn't been innocent for a long time.

Kakashi swings his legs around and stuffs the book ('Which he shouldn't be reading anyway,' Sakumo muses.) back in its spot. The lights are out before the silver haired man can even think about anything else. Moonlight streams into the room, illuminating Kakashi (_his son, his only child, his baby_) in the wispy, white light. He's beautiful (truly his mother's child at that moment) and Sakumo regrets he couldn't watch his son grow. (Because he was, still is, a coward.) The boy (teenager, hissed his self-conscious) gets into bed and curls on his side breathing softly.

Sakumo doesn't know what compels him to gently crawl into the bed behind Kakashi (_his son, his only child, his baby_) and settle beside him. Despite the chills rushing up and down Kakashi's neck and arms, he curls into the figure behind him. He remembers, can't forget, the way his father used to let him sleep in his bed after a nightmare and how loved he felt. He'll never admit out loud that he missed (_his father, his hero, his daddy_) the feeling of being held.

Sakumo wraps his arms around his child, as well as he could since they seemed to pass right through, to give him the illusion of being held. At least he has the chilly pressure of Sakumo against his back; at least his son could guess he is there. Sakumo's presence is there so long (yet never long enough) that the cold turns to warmth and the arms suddenly seem more solid, so real Kakashi swears he can feel hairs against his elbow. His heart fills with the knowledge that something is there to keep him company for just one night. He'll never admit it, but he hopes that it's Sakumo (_his father, his hero, his daddy_) there lulling him into the sweetest sleep he's had since before the war.

The voice in the back of Sakumo's head (he wonders if it's his fairy light because it's not the cruel voice of the darkness or the gentle voice of before) whispers for him to talk.

('He'll answer if he's sleeping,' this new voice pleads, 'they _always_ answer when they're sleeping.')

Swallowing instinctively, because he has no real reason to swallow, being dead and all, Sakumo opens his lips and speaks. His slumbering son's ears twitch, but he doesn't wake (something he'd chide himself for later, what kind of shinobi sleeps through someone talking) as Sakumo draws another habitual breath.

"Kakashi."

The word is sweeter than any honey (because it's the name that haunts his darkness) and full of regret.

The teenager (the word itself makes Sakumo feel old, despite the fact he'll never age past twenty-eight-years of age) twitches in his sleep and moves (he'd die of embarrassment if he knew he _snuggled_ back into Sakumo) towards the sound of the voice.

"I love you, son." (Please forgive me for being a coward and abandoning you. Please forgive me for the look in your eyes after finding my body in the den. Please forgive me for loving you enough to make all your troubles go away, but not seeing what you really needed to be happy.)

He waits while the stars twinkle above Kakashi's window and waits as the night air erupts into another wave of bursts from the fairy lights; another group of ancestors coming home for just one night. He waits a little more as the voice chimes happily in the back of his head.

Just when he gives up hope and he begins to fade as the first ray of morning light ever so gently wafts into the room. A voice, so young and carefree in sleep, finally answers back.

"I love you too, Tousan."

His little fairy light appears in front of his eyes and regrettably urges (the thing's not speaking, but Sakumo knows what it's trying to say) him to take his leave. His time (Obon) is over now and he must go back. Ever so gently, he moves off the bed (not that it matters, he wasn't really touching the bed in the first place) and begins to follow the light.

He stops and concentrates his spiritual chakra to try something new. A kiss placed upon Kakashi's (_his son, his only child, his baby_) forehead is the parting gift he leaves behind (seeing Kakashi smile as he feels the faint pressure of chapped lips on his forehead is the gift he receives in return) as he prepares to return to the other world.

He goes back a changed, no longer regretful or sorrowful, man. There's a fire burning in his soul (love perhaps) that no longer fears the darkness, no longer gives a damn about the cold, because Kakashi (_his son, his only child, his baby_) loves him still.

Sakumo returns to his afterlife as his fairy guide returns to her, or maybe his, lantern outside Kakashi's apartment. Sakumo, the mighty White Fang, returns not to darkness, but to light, (a fire burning just as bright as the emotion in his chest), and warmth. Tears stand in his eyes (he refuses to cry over something as silly as a campfire) as he sits down on a rock and waits.

He'll wait as long as he needs to (he hopes it'll be a long, long time) before he can see Kakashi again. Maybe by then, he'll have earned the complete forgiveness of his son.

(The cruel voice speaks no more, nor does the gentle one. All Sakumo is left with is the comforting crackle of a fire and the hope that burns brightly in his heart.)

Kakashi awakens to something he hadn't felt in a long time (the feeling of being held by a parent) as he tries to remember what happened the night before. He knows he is forgetting something (it teases him that he can't remember it). Wetness leaks from Obito's eye and Kakashi chuckles as he wipes the tears away before walking over and blowing out the candle on the table, underneath the picture of a silver haired man (_his father, his hero, his daddy_) that risked everything only to earn nothing in return.

Kakashi wants to be exactly like him (because those that abandon their teammates are lower than scum and he _refuses_ to be lower than scum again) and plans to make his father proud by fulfilling his legacy. Tying on his Hitai-ate and carefully pulling on his clothes, Kakashi heads out into Konoha (looking so much like the man his father was, proud, strong, and confident) with a round paper lantern underneath his arm.

He lets it go into the river ('Safe travels,' his heart pleads, remembering the things Kakashi forgot.) not knowing why he suddenly felt the need to. He'd never followed such a silly and impossible ('Completely possible,' his remembering heart chides.) notion that the dead actually came back to walk amongst the living for one night. Still, even if his head said it was fake his heart did the leading this one time.

The paper lantern floats down the Nakano River before disappearing into the sunlight. Hatake Kakashi stands on that red (he hates the color, reminds him too much of blood) bridge and thinks about his father (the coward, the hero, the father, the friend, the greatest thing Konoha ever lost) and smiles.

(It's like being alive; jumping into the Nakano River just to prove to Jiraiya you can survive the freezing waters. It's being called a coward because you abandoned your mission. It's having the guts to sheath a tanto into your own stomach just to purge dishonor from your family name. It's fighting your way out of the darkness and finding the light. It's thinking of _your son, your only child, your baby_, and knowing he still loves you. It's realizing that your Hell is, was, self-appointed and that love will always see you through.)

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*whistles innocently* Ahh, it's different from what I usually do, but I think it turned out okay. What did you guys think? It's kind of depressing, but it's got a nice little hopeful undertone there.

Since the manga came out with Sakumo and Kakashi's talk I've always wanted to write a story about that fire and how random it was for it to be there. Well, I never got around to doing it and then it just slowly became something I pushed to the back burner. This served the purpose I wanted it to. I've always played with the idea that Sakumo obviously felt guilty about his actions and how that would have affected his afterlife. He did wait for Kakashi in limbo instead of moving on, so I find it plausible.

Oh and did anybody else get the fairy light thing? It was the lantern lights that lead the dead!

Well, I hope you enjoyed it, please review any questions and comments, and I'll see you all next time.

'Til next time,

'Rayne


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